Red Magic: A Bayside City Book, #3

By James Dargan

RED MAGIC, A BAYSIDE CITY BOOK, EPISODE THREE 

Only the strong will survive in this city in turmoil! 

Avi Baumshinsky has grand plans to make his newly-refurbished Red Magic club the best in the country after Massimo Bertoni's boys hit it, though pressure is mounting for the Jewish kingpin in the Docklands over Purple Haze and it's giving him nightmares. Dick Devereux, no longer a cop but a self-styled vigilante for justice even if he doesn't like the term himself, is just one of them. Problems are also mounting for Mayor Ralph Dickerson, trying to juggle the upcoming mayoral election while appeasing the corrupt Police Commissioner Patrick Manning along with the mob factions in town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Dargan
• Release date: May 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513011950

James Dargan

James Dargan was born in Birmingham, England, in 1974. Coming from an Irish background, he frequently writes about that experience. As well as England, he has also lived in the United States, Ireland, and - for the best part of fifteen years - in Warsaw, Poland, his home from home from home.

Book preview

LET'S GET IT ON

WITH SAMPEDRO DEAD, the way is clear for Baumshinsky to make some serious bank.

It's done. He's gone. We whacked him, Baumshinsky says.

Opposite him at the table is Diego Suarez, his new partner.

You aren't going to regret this, Avi, the Mexican answers.

I fucking hope so, Diego. I don't wanna see half of fucking Mexico with guns at my fucking door, after my head because I whacked their man. Gluck walks into the room with Katz. "There he is – how you doing, Sammy?"

Like fucking sunshine, boss.

Guys, Baumshinsky then says, meet our new Mexican business partner.

Katz and Gluck shake Suarez's hand. A round of drinks then follows.

The Jews were shocked that Suarez wanted Sampedro out of the picture. They were supposed to be friends. Baumshinsky would never do that to a friend, maybe. He knows good men are hard to come by, and if you've got them you can rule the world. Can he trust the Mexican? He doesn't know about that. But one thing's for sure now, with Suarez on board he can directly influence how the manufacturing of Purple Haze goes on down in Mexico.

To our business! Suarez says, the third such toast in succession.

They drink another glass of the best champagne.

One question, Diego, Baumshinsky asks the Mexican, so what about Sampedro's men and his family... Don't they find it a little fucking funny that he's been murdered here?

I told you, everything's going to be all right. I've told his brothers we'll find the killers.

Yeah, his fucking brothers – what about 'em? I can't see 'em just letting you take the reins?

You worry too much, Avi – I've paid them off... Every month they'll get ten percent... It's a way less than what they were getting under Sampedro, but fuck them. I'm a businessman. I've got to capitalise – it's all for us, man...

Baumshinsky thinks Suarez is a little too nonchalant for the gravity of the situation.

You better be right, pal, Baumshinsky says as he's seeing Suarez out of the room.

Katz is taking him to the airport.

I'll be back in a few weeks, Avi. Me and Fish will get to work doubling our supply, Suarez says.

Suarez has gone with Katz to the airport. Baumshinsky's in his office with Gluck.

We have to watch that cat, Sammy. He's a maniac if you ask me. If he puts us at too much risk, we'll just have to deal with him.

I got that, boss.

"So why are you here again?"

I got the architect's blueprints for the club. You wanna see 'em?

Of course I wanna see 'em, you dumb ass shit schmuck you. Baumshinsky takes the blueprints off Gluck and places them on his desk. Oh, and Sammy, go and get me some green tea, my mouth's drier than the Mojave Desert.

AND MY PLAN FOR THE PLACE IS...

AVI BAUMSHINSKY WALKS into the Red Magic club, flanked by Katz, Gluck and Jordan Greenberg, an architect and interior designer who Baumshinsky has contracted to redesign the club after it was hit. The whole place has been stripped to the walls. The Jewish mob boss is after something much grander than its former incarnation. Around them, builders and carpenters and plasterers are hard at work. There's the noise of sawing, hammering and shouts from crew bosses as they delegate every worker a task.

This is gonna be the best club on the East Coast when it's finished, gentlemen – aiyn't that right, Jordan? Baumshinsky says.

Yes, sir, Greenberg says, pushing his thick-framed glasses up on his big nose.

I wanna show them Italian fucks who's king... I aiyn't gonna lose...

Greenberg isn't cheap – that's why Baumshinsky's hired him. He wants the best, and he's not afraid to pay top dollar for the pleasure.

Get to work, you lazy sonofabitch! a crew leader, wearing a newsboy cap with a fat cigar hanging out of his mouth, shouts to his workers at the far end of the club as they're putting up scaffolding.

What kinda time frame we looking at? Baumshinsky asks Greenberg.

Four months, sir.

I'll give you two.

"Two?"

Gluck and Katz start chuckling – what Baumshinsky wants, Baumshinsky gets – and don't they know it.

I think... I think... it will be... very difficult... sir, Greenberg says, the words spoken with fear and trepidation.

"Whatever I'm paying you, treble it... Can you do it, fucknuts?"

Money talks:

Two months it is then.

Forget the clubs in New York, Baumshinsky begins, hands in the air, because that town won't have nothing on what I wanna build... We'll have all the greats singing here. Hollywood stars coming to see 'em. Before the decade's out people are gonna know what Red Magic is.

Are you keeping the name, boss? Gluck asks.

Why not – it's a good one.

I was just thinking, like, you know... A new era, a new name?

Red Magic's Red Magic. We've got brand recognition. We'll keep it how it is.

GOING BEHIND SOMEONE'S BACK

AVI BAUMSHINSKY, MICK O'Kelly and the Polak Kit Zurowicz are around a table. Behind each of them, are their right-hand men: Moishe Katz, Vincent 'Mad Dog' Costello and Roman Kurowski, respectively.

Zurowicz and Kurowski have been out of the scene for some time, keeping a low profile for good reason: They've been thinking about how to make a move, which angle to take when it comes to declaring sides – now they seem to have come to a decision:

What you've got seems like it'll work, Zurowicz says, a short man with deep Slavic eyes.

Well thanks for the pointer, says Baumshinsky. O'Kelly doesn't look happy. Something is wrong with him and the Jew wants to find out what it is: Have you got some kinda problem, Mick?

Yeah, I've got a fucking problem all right.

"Well, that's why we're here, gentlemen, to air out all contentions – out with it?"

You've fucked me over, Avi.